Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Being an assassin meant familiarizing oneself with death at another's behest; both the concept and the execution.

It meant memorizing the rhythm of a song no one dared sing, acting out the steps of a waltz no one dared dance. They were often thought the stuff of movies, romanticized fiction, and when they appeared in reality, they were colored to be worse than the Master of the Hellish Yard. Evil, faceless people with no emotions.

While the "evil" bit was debatable, he and his sister-practically primary examples of that sort-commanded quite the variety of emotions. They ranged from the kind one would see in black comedy to the kind one would find in the slums. And it wasn't as if they were incapable of remorse.

They understood, possibly more than anyone, what came with the job. The stakes, the risks, the money.

Of course, Lemy had never gotten a no-fee high profile job with such a stupid fucking motive before.

"Restoration of family integrity, he said," grumbled Lemy in a rough imitation of Allen's high pitched Lucifenian as he hopped down a story. "Just another assignment, he said."

It was not, in fact, that simple. It was well within his abilities to kill a few people, but what Allen did not understand was that the "spoiled old men" he was talking about were actually essential in the mess that was Lucifenia's old capital. Or so Ney told him.

The first one on his list was one of the more prominent embezzlers, and one of the most useless- some upper class dipshit in charge of the factories on the west side of the pier called Don Tonk. It wasn't the worst name Lemy's ever seen, but it was up there. Don Tonk mostly spent his days lounging in one of the upstate mansions near the Square (not too far from Lemy's foster mother's residence, actually), with a constant supply of booze and the finest Beelzenian cuisine, nevermind being smack dab in a state known for its foods.

Previously, Tonk was just a six-rungs-down lackey set for general management of a single Yellow Rose factory, but when the old underworld command chain started dropping like a line of dominoes, Tonk managed to wrestle control over the rest of the factories left from the gang war and the assets that came with. Of course, the man couldn't get to where he was on factories alone- he monopolized the illegal product export, controlling two thirds of the waterfront through his Asmodean grunts, and ran several smuggling operations on the side.

Well, that was the surface of it. Lemy didn't know what happened to the Lucifenia of back then to let the underground grow this sloppy, but he would be damned if he went into this job without doing his homework. (Ha. If his mother could see him now, she would be weeping tears of rage.)

When Lemy dug further (through several questionable means of which neither he nor Riliane will ever give up) he found out that while Don Tonk was "the head" of these operations, and was also the most visibly rich, he was just one of many. Ney gave him a few leads-which he was offended by, because Lemy could find these by his own damn self, thank you, sister-and from there his list expanded like a balloon. The inefficient arguments around territory and arms was maddening. The redundancy of the management and the incompetence of the security was maddening.

The one thing Allen and he could probably agree on was the deterioration of the underground and, by proxy, the city - no, the country itself. The assets weren't fucking maintained, several fronts in Lucifenian were low quality and terribly designed, where the fuck was the money actually flowing, yadda yadda yadda here's some people you have to kill.

Well, technically he knew the answer to that, via the Neyclopedia. A good half of it went to Asmodean's ministry, a portion to the Elphegortian Rose branch which did absolutely fucking nothing, some of it to the Pere Noel funds (the Dealer was a prick, but at least he knew business), some of it to Maistia by way of- ugh, okay, no, stop. He didn't have enough brain cells to keep the facts straight anyway, nevermind his mother's (mostly Phoebe's) half-baked attempts at giving him a formal education.

The journey was almost insultingly easy. Taking the train from up north wasn't much hassle, especially when one was an ex-Leviantan street rat, and things got progressively easier as he arrived in Rolled. He bounded down the secluded side street he knew led to an apartment rise by the Orgo River with sure footsteps barely catching on the asphalt. From there, he would continue until he reached the large courtyards and grand manors that made up most of 1st Block. The don's manor was placed surprisingly close in design to the Abelard Mansion, with tall walls and an elaborate gate keeping out the rest of the world.

Lemy checked his pocket watch with a sour expression on his face, the little engraved dragon peering up at him in some warped caricature of mockery. The metal dug into his gloves.

2AM. It was time.

Steadying himself for one, two breaths, he pulled out his knives from the sleeves of his pierrot costume and got to work.

(And he understood, really, more than anyone, what came with the job. The gaping chasm, the blood underneath his fingernails, the bile always in the back of his throat. Lemy has never stopped long enough for it to matter. Being the Pierrot was his job, his responsibility- he could not afford to regret. Not yet.)

Ney clasped her hands behind her back with a firm set to her shoulders, no sign of a winning grin or even a dissonant grimace, carefully neutral. Her eyes were filled with something Lemy didn't want to name.

"They'll help us," she concluded, and that something had seeped into her voice and it sounded - grateful, almost. Relieved, like the elimination of a threat, like the utterance of thanks. "We won't get caught. You in?"

Lemy didn't know what to think.

"That sounds like a promise, sister."

"But it is," and there's the grin that's as familiar to him as the gleam of his knife, "have I broken a promise before?"

"You're being awfully trusting," he wanted to say.

"You're being awfully skeptical," she wanted to say.

It was almost funny, really. They had been on opposing sides of that argument before. Lemy too blind, Ney too blunt, the road back to 1st Block too cold. It was a question of loyalty yet again, but neither of them wanted to replay that night. Those questions weren't appropriate any more, anyway- they were both killers. Neither of them had the right to talk about ethics, about trust, about motives.

Then again...

The pierrot closed his eyes, hooked the little finger on his left hand, held it out. Ney mirrored his gesture.

They pinky swore on it. It was little more than a promise, little more than a reassurance, but this time the walls didn't feel like they were closing in and the ground was stable beneath their feet and the night sky was in full view.

It would be a checkpoint. After their bones started to creak and their selfish adventures would come to an end, when they didn't have to look after each other's backs every dying day for fear that something would give, when they had enough money and could sleep without wondering about work the next day, they would look back at this moment with their smiles immortalized in paper and names engraved in stone and say, finally, finally say, that they never did get caught.

It was a childish fantasy, he had to admit, but they couldn't stay children forever. Ney has regretted long before he even began to think about it, and the only fear he had in his heart was that one day Ney would grow up without him.

He thought about that look in her eyes, and wondered if she already had.)

.

Don Tonks' corpse was eventually found later that morning, face-down on his desk with two deep stab wounds spanning the length of his back, blood still dripping down onto the study floor. The following night, during the meeting to discuss the funeral and his successor, all twelve of his closest subordinates were killed in a similar manner. This was a pattern that repeated with more and more mafiosos, to the point where it could be ignored no longer.

The perpetrator was an unknown assassin obviously skilled in his craft, but with no visible employer. There was no reason to the killings-no, the massacres-aside from them all being important figures in the underground society connected to the Yellow Rose. They had just begun, but the mafiosos had ultimately decided it was a major threat to them and their operations, and thus organized a gathering to manage it.

Naturally, the most infuriated was the foolish young Heiress, successor to the throne of the Rose left by her parents (and, of course, only kept alive by sentimentality). The invitation she sent to each "minister" was thus:

"To the esteemed ministers of Our Lucifenia,

By the will of the Lucifen House,

your esteemed presence

is requested

for Dinner and Drinks

on August 10th, EC XXX

at seven o'clock in the evening

at the Lucifen Manor, Lucifenian Republic

RSVP C.L. by August 3rd

271-519-1167

There is much to be discussed. The rose will not collapse here.

HRH Riliane Lucifen,

L'Héritière."

All that was left was to wait.

Lemy, Allen begrudgingly acknowledged, did a very thorough job when it came down to things.

It had barely been a week since he had assigned the troublesome pierrot the task of eliminating the figures of the Lucifenian underground, and he had already provoked such a large reaction from the rest of the families. With this exemplary progress, Riliane had been delighted, and ordered for the second stage of the plan to be brought ahead of schedule.

Staring narrowly at his planner, Allen thought that Lemy had done too thorough of a job.

While Chartette was the one officially listed as the event correspondent, Allen was (as usual) the one left up to actually organizing the dinner. He was almost always busy with something, either preparing their old Manor for guests or checking on their restaurant investments. Since the dinner would be much larger than he was used to, it took a little more effort on his part than his usual small self-sufficient birthday celebrations. The Avadonias hadn't needed a live-in chef, but Allen was happy to provide, and with Riliane there really wasn't any other choice. (She could make some mean brioche, though she always insisted his was better for some reason.)

"So," said Allen, laying out his notes on the dinner table. Lemy and Gretel-Ney looked up from where they were fooling around with a deck of cards. "Any specifics that you want added to your food, please say it now, or forever hold your tongue. I don't have all day." Well, he did, but that was beside the point.

Instantly, the assassins responded together, "No green onions!" "Lots of green onions!"

They shot each other wretched looks.

"I said no first," said Lemy, slamming a hand down on the table. Allen grimaced.

"Aw, and I thought I'd get to bully you," said Ney, pouting."You still hate them, yeah?"

Lemy looked faintly green with disgust. He stuck out his tongue. "Always."

"What are you, a toddler?" muttered Allen under his breath. Lemy looked at him sharply. "It doesn't matter either way, because a good portion of the ministers have some sort of Elphegortian roots, especially the ones that originally hail from the other branch. Green onions are basically an aristocratic staple there, very sought-after." He frowned. "And besides, they are supposed to be very, very amazing. I think."

"Where the fuck did you hear that," said Lemy, Leviantan accent getting thicker with brimming horror. "There's only one person I know who says that. Menace! Gave me green onion salad once. I think it blinked at me. I felt likeI was gonna die!"

Ney swatted Lemy's shoulder, returning to the deck of cards. "You exaggerate."

"I do not, fuck you," her brother squawked, signifying the end of that particular spat. He squinted at the cards. "Hm. Go Fish?"

"Haha, good try. Poker."

"No! You always beat me at that one!"

"That's because you can't hide your emotions for shit. And, you never fold."

Lemy scrunched up his face, like it would prove a point. "Different game."

Ney reconsidered. "Strip poker."

"Hell's fucking mask-"

The rest of the conversation went in a similar vein, with an insult of some sort appearing every two sentences, quickly devolving into a match of "who can put in the most Leviantan swears in a sentence and still make it vaguely grammatically correct". Allen watched in morbid fascination for a little while before sighing, returning to the tedious task of finding catering services that would suit both the ministers' refined tastes and Riliane's personal favorites. After a few moments of cautious deliberation, he circled two restaurants with red pen and exited his seat to begin making reservations.

He supposed he could ask them to go light on the leeks. It wasn't as if the ministers would be eating for very long.

Their mother's bare old bachelorette penthouse was one thing, but the original ancestral home was another thing entirely. Here, with history suffused into every marble square inch, was where the Lucifen bloodline had thrived and bled for centuries.

It was also horrendously stuffy.

(It was where their father had fallen. It was where their mother had taken her last breath. It was where Riliane had run away from. It was where Allen had run away from. It was lonely, and he hated it here.)

It greatly resembled the Lucifenian Palace in structure, with miniature versions of the Hall of Sounds and the Hall of Mirrors in their own extravagant wings. The architecture was wide and vaulted, vaster and vaster with each step they took, tapestries and the contents of several armouries lining the walls in still splendor, priceless sculptures gleaming in their places, crystal chandeliers glowing in the bright light of the hall, with a clear view of the extremely well-kept garden ringed by stars through the open arches and tall windows. The mumbling noise of small talk and soft footsteps was almost magnified by the stone, mingling with the proud notes of the mini-orchestra playing at the side of the hall. It left the impression of history, of importance, thrumming in the air like it was something alive with the spark of potential instead of something to be recorded in hindsight, static.

The event would start soon.

(There was no history here but of the dead. What was truly present was an emptiness that stared at him from the cracks in the walls and the shadows of the columns, an impression of something lost, and something that he would never have again so long as he was still alive.)

Two dozen ministers and their friends (spouses, escorts, important relatives, successors, close subordinates, the like) were gathered in the ballroom, waiting for the strike of seven to signify the beginning of the dinner. Allen thought that they would be more serious-faced, considering the contents of Riliane's letter, but it seemed that all of them had just treated this like another mafia social. Which was to say, a normal social, except all of the attendees had extremely warped world views, treated life like illegal four-dimensional chess, viewed murder as a mild inconvenience, and had hordes of suited mafiosos at every beck and call. Smiles like clawed fingernails and eyes that stared into the soul.

Riliane fit right in.

His sister was entertaining quite the crowd at the center of the hall, shaking hands and laughing daintily with their dinner guests as if nothing was the matter. Currently, she was having a muted chat with a man in a blue suit while Ney kept watch behind her. Allen studied the man with no hint of shame- a bit rat-like, with a crooked nose, long black hair and a nervous smile… Presi Rogze, Allen thought, finally matching name to face. He was one of Riliane's first supporters as Heiress after Alexiel died, or so Riliane said, but Allen was of the simple impression that he was a professional bootlicker. Never mind his questionable history with the government and the current Prime Minister, he looked like someone that existed for nothing but poor delusions of grandeur and thus was classified as trash. Allen wondered at Riliane's fortitude.

"Oy, Allen," whispered Chartette, tapping his shoulder. She was wearing a soft brown-ochre vest and tie instead of her usual maid ensemble, just like all the hired help bustling about in the hall.

Allen tried to put on a wan smile. "Yes, Chartette? Please don't tell me you've broken something."

Chartette's eyes widened. "No, not this time! I'd never!" Allen stared. Chartette didn't look like she believed in those words either. "Anyway," she cleared her throat, "the other folks are having trouble with the wine cellar. Shut it and can't get it open again, m'afraid."

This soon?

Unbeknownst to him, his smile vanished without a trace and was replaced by a faint gauntness in his face.

Chartette looked like she didn't really understand, but Allen knew from experience and the concern between her brows that she wouldn't pry. Allen appreciated that in a person. "Alright, then," she said, tone worried, "I think we should wait until seven."

"A bit after seven," Allen amended.

Chartette nodded. "See ya later, then."

(Coward, whispered a voice that sounded suspiciously like his own. Always running from your problems and never fixing them. You'd rather you forget about it yourself than seek forgiveness, huh? Don't have enough options, do you? Did you stop looking?)

Allen slipped away from the Hall of Sounds like a ghost.

He went to the wine cellar.

"You're having trouble?" asked Allen as he approached, face schooled into an appropriately helpful expression, falling seamlessly into his role.

"You fucking bet," grumbled the waiting servant, foot tapping impatiently in the dimly lit hallway. "The red-haired girl- whatsername, Chartette, she said a fellow named Allen knew how to open it? That's you, yeah?"

Allen nodded, ignoring the inappropriate use of swear words for the time being. This was civilized society, not a backstreet, but it didn't mean he had the right to harass them over it. "Yes, that would be me."

"Formal guy," they remarked, redirecting the tapping from their foot to their hand, making an annoying clunkclunkclunk sound against the wood of the cellar door. The full-alphabet keypad blinked red. "Get to it, my man."

Allen sighed, prepared himself for a momentous feat, and input 'EllukaIsBallerKissMyWizardAss42069Xx' into the wine cellar keypad.

The other servant whistled. Allen felt an embarrassed flush lighting the tips of his ears on fire. It was not his fault that the Lion and the Clockworker had a longest-insulting-wine-passcode contest (and that Leonhart had inevitably made him memorize each one while drunk, never mind young Allen didn't know where half of these cellars were, or why his foster father knew of them).

The levity was soon shaken off, however, as he veered sharply to the left of the cellar and descended down a flight of steps. The other servant had followed him inside and was lighting the way for him with a flashlight, peering curiously at the aged label of the wine he plucked off the old shelf. He dropped the flashlight with a heavy thud as Allen tossed the bottle to him, plucking several more from the shelves.

"This one's got no real label on it," noted the servant. "You sure?"

"Absolutely," said Allen. "I have been serving the Lucifen House for years, and so has Chartette. It would be folly not to know its customs. Every three years, the House will host a banquet, and every three years, the opening toast must be one of these bottles at the back. No exceptions, or I would give the House my head myself, ax be damned."

The servant didn't look convinced. "Uh-huh? You… really like tradition, dont'cha?"

Allen sighed, walking over to the servant. "Where are you from."

"The, uh...? You asking me my backstory over here, dude? Moved around a lot, stayed a bunch of places. Here and there, ya know. Working a good sum for some Marlon dude since about a year ago, for a front. Nothing special."

Allen's footsteps stopped.

"So you really don't know what rule you've broken?"

He didn't give the other servant any time to respond, pinning them to the wall, whipping out an unweighted dagger Ney had loaned him for this specific occasion and pressing it to the servant's throat with a steady hand, razor edge nearly pricking skin. He spoke very softly. "Tell me where you placed the bugs, and I will let you go. Telling me will just make this easier for both of us, and for my master."

Even after upheaval, even after turning into a republic, even after surviving the fall of one of the most influential empires of the current age, the streets of Lucifenia remembered. There was a creed of rules, constantly changing to adapt to its population, but the most important one stayed the same:

Don't mess with the Rose.

"H-how did, how did you know?"

"Chartette is very good at what she does, and is an excellent judge of character. She saw you by Her Highness and offered to take you to the cellars when you showed great interest in it. Also, your flashlight is weighted."

The other servant whimpered, choking out a sob. "L-library, in a stack of books, and one in a gift for the Heiress, you know, uh, in the- fuck, in the coat, th-the other's, in, um, under her dining table, in the hall with all the mirrors! That's it! Only, only three, I swear, Masters, I swear, I was paid so much fucking money just to put a bit of poison in the Heiress's drink, the Rogze said, and I needed it, and-"

Allen let go of the plant, who was desperately gasping for air, and reached into his pockets for the wad of cash he knew was there.

"Take this," said Allen, pushing the cash at the other servant, sighing. He was doing a lot of sighing tonight. "It won't help much right now, but at least take it as an extension of my goodwill. What job right now, and which front?"

The servant caught the cash with widened eyes, one hand still rubbing their throat. "B-barista, a bar- or, uh, a coffeeshop of sorts in the morning, in the city? Right by the river? You know, Urwell's-"

"I'm familiar with that front," said Allen. "Tell Harbin that Kokutan-douji says hi, and that he owes me two people and five thousand Ev. Oh, and don't bother reporting back to Rogze. You work for me now."

"E-eeh?"

Allen plastered a patient smile over his face, gesturing with a hand. "The Yellow Rose pays well for plants. You're talented at stealth operations- just bug a list of locations that Chartette will give you in a week's time, nothing much, and you can resume your job at Urwell's with no extra trouble and an additional paycheck. Tell me if you hear anything interesting. Just think of it as a normal job, yes?"

The servant stared warily at him. "And the cash?"

Allen put a hand to his chin in contemplation. "You were supposed to get paid for this op, yeah? Well, consider this compensation."

"About… about the employee thing," the servant swallowed. "If I… If I didn't want to work for the mafia anymore… would you let me go?"

"You mean, can you quit?"

The servant froze. "I-I-It, I, if I can't, that's, th-that's fine, just don't-don't kill me, please, I have family I have dependents I-"

Allen pretended to think, frowning. "Yes, you can quit. But at least complete what I asked of you, we'll provide protection and surveillance, and after that, you can stop working for the Rose- we'll retract the paycheck, of course. Nonetheless, we'll spare the funds to relocate you and your dependents, if you so wish. What's money if it's not to be used, after all?"

The servant broke out a small, awkward chuckle. "E-eat the rich, right?"

"Right," Allen coughed, "go report to Chartette. She's your superior officer."

Allen watched the other servant kneel and scamper out of the cellar with dark eyes. If only it were so easy.

The Manor was grand and stiff and unmoving, like it always was, like it had always been, but Allen had the sinking feeling of being out of place. It was the little things that made up the unfamiliarity, the undisturbed cold of the floors and the lack of noise. It had not changed, yet it had. While he had spent days restoring the two main Halls, the kitchen and the reception hall to perfect condition, he had scarcely any time to visit the places of his childhood. (You were avoiding it. You're just running from one problem to another. Admit it.)

Riliane's 'room' was different, in a different location, but still so close. She explained that she had to move rooms after he disappeared. Her tone was nonchalant, bored and curling, as if the matter at hand was the weather or a new scone recipe and not the bitter fruit of his own foolishness.

What used to be their room (the last thing that was truly ever theirs and theirs alone) was across the hall.

He stood there with a stiffness more suited to one of the moss-covered statues in their Heavenly Yard, face like stone, gaze fixed upon the closed doorway. He stood for what felt like a very long time, doing nothing but observing the crack in a long-held facade. There, in the throes of the past, the echo of footsteps hung like dynamite.

With a detached curiosity, he noted the doorway was open now, and he could see inside.

Their old bed. Their old dresser. Their old wardrobe. Heavy-set curtains, never to be opened again. Toys belonging to him, that Riliane had not touched. A dusty doll-sized glass bottle. The pressing scent of stale air and must.

He took the stuffed rabbit still propped against the bed, lips pressed tightly together. A reminder. He lifted up the dusty ears and pressed a finger to its nose. He did not bring anything with him, that night. Strange that it would all still be the exact same. There was a tightening in his chest, and he felt that if he looked away for a second it would all disappear.

The boy named Allen stood up, looking inside at what had once been familiar, comforting things. They belonged to a dead child now.

Then, the sound of shuffling fabric, and the dainty creak of a door.

"Do you miss it?"

(Never.)

(Of course.)

There were no nobles to disturb here, just half-remembered childhoods gone to dust. Allen tried to rise to his feet, but his knees were weak. Riliane, standing in the room with him, gazing wistfully at their old things like he was just a moment ago.

"I-" he swallowed, looking away from his sister, wetting his lips in a futile attempt to make speaking easier. He was offering an excuse for why he was in that room, playing with a ghost's things. Why?

Riliane smiled. It was with a depth she did not typically utilize, this steel-spined smile, borne of familiarity with nostalgia and regret.

"The dinner will begin soon," she whispered. "Remember your promise."

She searched him with a long, indecipherable look, found what she was looking for, and left him to his own devices. It left him raw.

Now or never. No second chances.

Allen left the room, closed the door, went up the stairs. His brain felt like steel wool scratching at the inside of his skull, a faint grey buzz, his surroundings a blur. There were still people here, the waiters and attendants he had called to help with dinner preparations, scampering about with only the dinner on their mind, carrying coats to racks and announcing names as they entered the manor.

The kitchen was in no less of a hurry. Everyone was finishing last-minute preparations for the appetizer that no one would notice a small form walking briskly to a section with several bottles of old wine set out for the occasion. He was wearing the castle's livery as well, so for all intents and purposes, he was just another servant. He took one last steadying breath.

Allen uncorked the Gift.

"What a choice! Pray tell, Heiress, what is this wine?"

A polite laugh, the wave of a gloved hand. "This is a wine We have had in Our stores for generations upon generations of Lucifen history. Our mother called it Blood Grave- calm, it has no blood in it, just the finest wine."

A cough. "Heiress, you will not partake in the toast?"

"We do not touch alcohol. We hardly see what is so wonderful about such a bitter juice- but, for the sake of family tradition, and as the Heiress to the Lucifen family, We will make the toast."

The clink of an empty glass. "You are young yet, Heiress- eventually, the day where you can appreciate such a flavor will come."

The subtle grit of teeth. "Then We will trust your good judgement."

"Ah, that reminds me- the taster?"

A sharp smile, a clap, the shift of fabric, measured footsteps. "We were expecting that, minister, don't concern yourself too much. Allen here is one of Our most trusted subordinates, you see..."

"What a mighty resemblance to you, Heiress! Orthodox Lucifenians are a rarity these days, aren't they?"

"He amuses me, with his appearance and his loyalty. A tribute to my Orthodox parents, you see. A true treasure." Noises of understanding and approval.

Then, like the chime of a bell, the sound of liquid pouring.

"The wine is clean, Your Highness."

Riliane laughed; high and trilling and joyful, as if genuine, as if innocent. "Allen, you may return. Now, to Our esteemed ministers, the very roots of the Yellow Rose…"

A grin worthy of a noble. "To our prosperous empire!"

"Cheers!"

It started with the clinking of glass. There was a moment of silence, pregnant with some shaking feeling of foreboding in Allen's gut, as every guest present drank the wine. For a second, the light caught on the wine glasses, glinting poison vermillion. For a second, to Allen, the Hall was bathed in red.

The boy watched them drink with a sense of detachment from his position behind Riliane. His eyes did not move, simply observing the table before him with a dead stare.

Allen's world was one of paradoxes, of distrust and loyalty, of streets and mansions, of things that worked and things that didn't. The foreboding he felt earlier crowned, the sense of I don't belong in this broken place consumed him, confused him, like it wasn't a world that was his. Or, if it was his, then it was only for the moment. Right now, it felt like he wasn't even real.

The scene before him was like staring through a distorted mirror. Distant behind the glass, separating what made Allen and Alexiel between an impassable barrier.

(His father falling, the wine spilled. That was not his father, that was not the wine he drank, that was not his body-)

'Allen' was born as a child of the streets who only had vague memories of times before. He had a foster father who loved to drink and things to hide and a foster sister with the best hugs. Nothing more, nothing less. That was his reasoning. That was his shield.

It just didn't seem real to him, the future had never hit truth to him, the past he actively repressed. He buried those feelings in the soles of his thickened feet, the stolen wallets of the unfeeling, the disgusting, a filth in his veins and a crick in his neck that unnerved him. It proved difficult to picture one year following the next.

And then, the mirror broke.

Everything was clear to him- Allen or Alexiel or anyone else, reality was the only thing before him, laid out by the sound of falling bodies, and he was losing himself in the shards.

they drank the wine and this was not the first time not unfamiliar to him his eyes his ears there were so many of them wearing the clothes that he used to and then he was falling to the floor the hand holding his glass fell there was vomit on the marble he cleaned and he was screaming but he was weak nothing he could do they lay already dead their chests fluttering before stilling nobody would come nobody would come

nobody would come

they are dead do you remember they are dead just like your father was dead just like

Both now and then, he ran.

The vomit on his tongue raised a stench above even the blood in the other room. Someone was choking on air, reaching for breath. There was something grating about being there, something familiar and uncomfortable, brimming with static. The lines between the blood-soaked room in the past and the same boy curled up in a corner blurred.

he was six years old suspended in the instant he kissed death and lived

he was six years old running through the tragedy-stricken manor, his father's body spilled over the ground at his feet

he was choking on sobs, he was alone, he was alone, he was-

"Allen."

he was alone alone alone nobody would come nobody would come they are dead you are dead do you remember

"Allen, get a hold of yourself!"

The hand grasping his shoulder was the realest thing, for a moment, cutting through the buzz. The fingernails pressing into his shoulder pads, the palms digging into his collarbones, almost as if reluctant to let go for fear he might shake himself to death.

"Look at me. Allen, do me a favor and fucking look at me, will ya?!"

It was Gretel. Golden eyes, blue eyes, dirty white bow phasing into a lengthy ponytail, the past and the present still blurring before him like a desert mirage, but one thing he would rather die before mistaking was her expression. Her expression was still the same. The same bright-lit mean-edged gaze, the determined set of the brows, the lips pulled back like sneering would solve all his problems. She was not smiling now. There was nothing to smile about.

All his life, he had been running away. He made no move to stand.

"My dad died here," he said, voice hoarse, past the block in his throat, and all of a sudden it was too easy. "My dad died here. It was my fault. Always my fault. He drank the wine I bought for him and we buried him the night after! I didn't know it was poisoned, but I was trained better than that, should've known better, but no. I was an idiot. He was too good for me. He died because of me and I've never been able to look it in the fucking eye and I had to go back here and do the same thing." He laughed a broken laugh. "I'm such a pissing coward. Rat shit, garbage-throating bastard of a thousand wh-"

"Don't."

Allen looked up. Gretel-Ney looked furious.

"Don't insult yourself like that." She bit her lip, almost as if to start again, but she looked pained at the words available to her. In the end, she settled on an easy silence, and Alexiel began to talk once more.

"I ran away because I couldn't deal," he said. "I drank the wine in his glass just to see if I would die like he did. I didn't, for some- for some, shitty reason, and then I ran away, because I couldn't bear the consequences. I'm so fucking stupid. What kind of son..."

Silence.

"What would happen to a kid who killed his dad in the mafia, huh? I know of gangs that would accept the killer as the heir in a heartbeat, but…" he shook his head. "The Rose isn't like that. Mother isn't like that. She would never let a traitor into her family."

"Would she have listened to you, if you gave her the chance?"

Alexiel gave a weak shrug, and tried to catch Ney's gaze. "I wouldn't know. Never got the chance to ask her."

But Ney was not looking at him. She was staring at the vaulted, carved ceiling like it held the answers to something she couldn't quite ask. "I don't know if I've told you this before. I killed my mother."

Alexiel's face hurt to move, fixed in a listless expression. "Why?"

"We were young and stupid and scared," said Ney quietly. "I took my mother and my brother took father. We ran away, after."

"Did you look back?" He paused, and rephrased his question. "Do you regret it?"

"I can't say if I do. There must have been another path, but that path- I didn't take it, you know? I only have the path I made with my own feet. The only thing I can do now is move forward, and not get caught." She tilted her head and caught Alexiel's stony gaze. "I think you've done a good job of that so far, coward or not."

...Allen laughed.

It was a strange laugh, this one. Unfamiliar and stiff just like the walls of the not-home around him, a laugh he had never laughed before. It wasn't nice or happy or innocent. It wasn't broken, no. It was whole in a way that he had not been in a long time; split between his sister and a past that he didn't deserve, between an empire he had barely begun to handle, and there he had forgotten himself.

"I've…" he said, shoulders shaking, choking out his words with the pain that seized his throat, "I'm really an idiot, aren't I?"

What would Father say?

Treasure your comrades. Treasure your family. Treasure what you build with your own two hands and stay humble. Alexiel… I'll leave it all to you, yeah?

"I've never been alone," Allen whispered, and for a moment, the world seemed a little brighter.

After Ney left the room to deal with clean-up, Allen was told to sleep. He felt all too human and all too raw, but he agreed that was the only thing he could possibly do to recover right now.

"Trauma sucks," said Ney, shoving Allen back down onto his old bed with a huff as she prepared to leave. "Stay there! We'll deal with this."

What he had not agreed to, however, were the dreams.

It was like he had forgotten how to dream anything other than that, that room, the faceless people, the wine. The night terrors crept up his chest in a way he remembered all too well from when he was small and homeless with nothing but a plastic sheet to defend against the Lucifenian winter, taunting him with half-formed visions of things that were better left unremembered.

He woke in a cold sweat—he was sure, in that line between a dream and a death, that it had all been real. That everything had happened just moments ago.

It was three in the morning when he realized he couldn't sleep.

Perhaps it was because of the disturbing happenings of the day, or the way he could see his father's fallen body every time he closed his eyes. He wondered why murder in itself was considered the worse sin, but the thoughts that came with dug further than the kill; to think led one down to the endless roads that they may have been able to take, the possibilities that he had not considered when taking life. There was only the path he walked now, certainly, but it didn't make wondering any less easier.

He thought about what his sister would had done, if their positions were reversed. Surely, she wouldn't have run away. That had to have been one of the reasons his mother hadn't looked for him in the first place, having been born weak. That was okay. When he had learned of her death and the feeling rose up, he hadn't recognized it. It felt filthy and terrible, but he enjoyed it. Relief.

He had never known that relief could hurt.

Perhaps, he could even dare to say his sister must have not felt relief at the time. Yet, he had never mustered the courage to ask, not once in all his four years of working for her. He was simply too afraid to know the answer.

He sat on his bed, bringing up his bare feet upon the soft covers, and focused on just breathing.

Somehow, he was still alive when he opened his eyes again. His room was still his room. The boy was still Allen.

Somehow, that was the worst part.

Ney walked down the stairs with nary a sound, her fingernails digging into the palm of her clenched fist as she counted the beats of her heart.

One-two, one-two, one-two. Almost like a waltz.

"Did you look back? Did you regret it?"

The answer was too easy. It stared her in the face from the shadows of the proto Lucifenian palace, unblinking and relentless, a constant she always ignored for fear they might swallow her one day. The path she walked was not so easily quantifiable. It involved more than just herself, webs upon webs of characters and connections, and the only solace she received from it was the knowledge that she would live for one more day, that she would have one more chance to find her mother.

What was the use of looking back, if you only lived to walk forwards?

What was the use of regret, if you couldn't spare time to repent?

(The real answer: everyday. Everyday, regret thrived like a living thing within her very bones, eating her from the inside out, replaying scenes in her head she could not hope to forget in a thousand years. But it did not matter, because she was alive, and they were not.)

Ney shook her head. They were useless thoughts, as Kyle so liked to say- the somber atmosphere after the dinner had just killed her mood, and Allen wasn't helping whatsoever. He would probably feel better after a few days of heavy distraction, which was thankfully in line with the huge underground fuck-up they just caused. The Heiress better appreciate the Gift (haha, ow, that was lame.)

Procuring the Gift was not as hard as it should have been. Considering the matter of her typical work, it wasn't much of a task at all. The Rogze family had sold her employer the formula to a particularly potent sleeping drought in return for a Phutapie-trained shadow to conduct assassinations and inter-family guerrilla warfare. As a result, young Ney had been given the name of Marlon, and assumed the persona of a well-mannered politician's daughter to the public eye while acting as the symbol of PN's relationship with an influential Marlon family to the underground. It gave her exploitable connections and a good position within the hierarchy, so she really couldn't complain.

An example of those perks: it only required a quick phone call with Pere Noel's business representative and a small transaction from the Rose's operation funds to become the proud owner of three vials of Second Gift in the name of the Yellow Rose.

During the call, she had confirmed two things: first, there had been no news of the other parts of the Lost Mirror of Lucifenia circulating at all (not surprising), and second, Le Milieu was in disarray. Families eyeing other families in the scramble for power, the possibility of uprisings from opportune subordinates, whisperings of dissent and discontent. Ney had been careful in listing only the families that posed the biggest threats to the Heiress' reign and the ones with the more malleable successors, though inevitably some of them had been brought along to the dinner and… negotiated with accordingly. The servants that had tried to run and broken the silence agreement, Lemy disposed of.

Not everyone present at the dinner died, naturally. Some proved slightly resistant to the poison's effects, and were promptly disposed of by yours truly. Some…

Some did not deserve to go so peacefully.

Ney pulled out her flip phone from the folds of her maid skirt, quickly dialling a newly-memorized number with decisive vigor. One could almost say that she was excited.

"Hello, brother dearest," she drawled in Leviantan, "how is our wonderful guest coming along? He awake?"

There was a slight crackle from the other end. "I'm surprised he can still open his eyes, really. You gave him one hell of a whopper."

"So he's there?"

"Yeah," said Lemy, "he's with me in the dungeon."

… What.

"There's a dungeon. Just trust me on this one. There's an actual fucking dungeon. Line of prison cells. Really, uh, medieval." Lemy went on to describe the details of the dungeon and its location. After relaying the relevant information, she hung up on him, and made her way through the hallways to find the… dungeon.

It seemed that being extra was not exclusive to the heir twins, oh no. The entire fucking Lucifen lineage was just Like That. There were gargoyles, fountains, marble statues, a hall filled with wicked swords, an entire wing dedicated to bedrooms of varying grandeur, useless trinkets, stained glass with Heavenly motifs, a throne room seemingly for no reason other than to look cool, and, to the best of her knowledge, seven chandeliers. She gave up.

The servants' hallways were narrow and had significantly less decoration, the only adornments being the occasional withered flower pots, old lamps, and a few small paintings. Eventually, she found a large wooden door with a loosened padlock (bad security, was this thing for show), and pushed it open.

The dungeon was two lines of dingy cells, smelling heavily of something that might be rust or dried blood. Prevalent amidst the iron, though, was the scent Ney had learned to associate with a person scared shitless. It was a generally foul odour.

"Sis," said Lemy, bare-faced and solemn, shoving a figure into the cold stone floor. "Got 'em."

Ney didn't bother to reply, approaching the shaking figure with slow, deliberately audible footsteps. Their dark hair was long and lank, their nose crooked, nervous smile wiped and face almost unrecognizably twisted. In the coldest voice she could muster, she uttered two words:

"Presi Rogze."

The man did not look up. Pathetic. She started pacing with the same lackadaisical rhythm, hands behind her back, golden eyes narrowed.

"You know, uncle," she said conversationally, "I'd thought you would know better than to put yourself under the banner of a Rose minister, especially after last year, hm?"

No response. Ney continued.

"Don't make me laugh. Your ambition is hopeless. Tell me, what did you wish to accomplish here?"

No response.

"Then allow me to ask you again." She stopped pacing, slowing to a halt right before the man's downturned face. "When you were talking with the Heiress, earlier, what did you say?"

"I-It," stuttered Presi rather poorly, "it-I wasn't-it was just, ah, uh, a list of names, really… nothing too imp-portant, no, I wouldn't dare…!"

"You were thrown out of the Rogze House, stripped of your title, and forbidden from forming connections with the underground for as long as you remained alive. All your possessions with possible criminal roots were confiscated by the Queen's Rose. All your assets were frozen. And yet, to be here, in such a place, to attempt the disposal of the Heiress in such a manner…" She crouched down and took the man's chin in one hand, forcing him to look her in the eye. He whimpered. "Our Prince would not grant you amnesty or pardon so easily. This, I'm sure, violates one of the terms of your agreement with him. So, tell me." She leaned closer. "Is the Blue Dowager's faction still active?"

Presi did not answer. His face was still a deathly pale.

(Kyle stared down at the rat-like man before him, hand on his gun. Ney wasn't sure whether to be delighted or disappointed at the cold glint in his eyes, reflective like mirror shards. "To spare you your life, I must not acknowledge that you live. Wipe your presence off the map, cut all ties, surrender your fortune. You are allowed to keep ownership of a company of my choice, with the added condition that half its profits go to me. Are we clear?"

"We are clear, Prince," whimpered Presi, kneeling nose-first into the floor.

Kyle frowned strangely. "Dis...dismissed," he said, with a wave of his hand, and the man left the Marlon Hall in a quivering bow.)

In the end, whether it was active or inactive, abandoned or active, it didn't matter all the same. She had sources more reliable than this bastard of a man. "If you will not explain yourself," Ney said softly, "then I will do what I have always wanted to do."

She pulled out the knife from her skirts with a quick flick of her wrist, the old oil-lamp light casting her face into shadow.

Blood splattered the dungeon floor.

(Ney turned to her half-brother with a questioning look on her usually blankly joyful face. "Wouldn't it be easier just to kill him?"

For a moment, Kyle did not respond, and Ney expected to be dismissed with a flick of his hand and barely a glance like every other day she questioned him like this. His authority was absolute as the leader of this coup, after all, and she was nothing more than one of his right hands. To her surprise, he swallowed, carefully looked her in the eyes, and replied in a feeble tone: "Miss Margaret, she… she wouldn't have wanted that."

Kyle was smiling softly. For the first time in a long while, the Prince had an expression akin to the boy she had known all those years ago, the upturn to his lips slightly lopsided, eyes kind and glittering, the gun dropped on the ground with quaking fingers. He turned to his half-sister and beamed.

"I can't feel the mirror," he said, tears freely flowing down his cheeks as he knelt upon the dais, "it's gone! The mirror is gone!")

.

In a parlor off Methis River, a young man slowly stirred his tea with a bored frown, staring out the window to gaze upon the littered pier. Even in what was considered the richer half of Bariti, the northern district couldn't avoid the inevitability that was rubbish. An honest failing of his people, really- perhaps he should organize something to clean it up?

He shook his head. No, that would never work. People would talk, his position was precarious enough as it was, and it would resume its filthy state by the next week at the latest. The young man sighed in quiet resignation.

Almost as if to distract him from his useless thoughts, the barely-used phone in his jean pocket began to ring. "So, let's play a game of girl dissection-"

No, no, no! This was most definitely Ney's doing, the infernal girl! Face heating up in embarrassment, the sad existence known as Kyle Marlon picked up the phone a little too quickly, not even looking at the caller ID.

"Good evening," he said, regaining his composure almost instantly (that was a skill he'd had to practice, he was glad it was starting to pay off). "Kyle Marlon here. What is it that you wish to say?"

"Ah, hope I didn't catch you at a bad time, Kyle."

Kyle blinked in surprise at the slightly Lucifenian tilt to the Marlon words. "Ney! It's been a while since I've heard from you." Then, in the most authoritative, solemn voice he could muster, "What have I told you about changing my ringtone. Really, you know I ha-"

"-ve a reputation to maintain among your subordinates, I understand, I understand! You worry too much, honest. Just wanted to have some fun with my second favorite brother." He could just about hear the pout in his sister's words. She hadn't grown up at all, even though she was seventeen now.

"You've been saying that for the longest time and I still have no idea who your favorite brother is," said Kyle dryly.

"It's a secret. You don't deserve to know."

"Hey!"

"You've been demoted to third favorite brother, by the way."

...

"I'm cutting your salary."

"No you aren't." She had a point. Ney was one of his most reliable subordinates, whimsy aside. He couldn't appoint just anyone in charge of the SMTF. "Anyway, the line should be secure. I would love to chat more, Prince, but I'm afraid this call is strictly business."

Kyle stilled.

Ney never called him 'Prince' anymore. Not since…

"I'm listening," he said. If Ney meant business, Ney meant business. The least he could do was pay her that respect.

Ney's tone was brisk, neutral, with barely any inflection. "In the past three hours, I have encountered an unnameable. This man has explicitly gone against word sworn to the Prince and Old Marlon. This individual has voided your mercy by attempting the assassination of the head of an allied faction."

Here, Ney seemed to pause a bit, as if considering her next words carefully. "Namely… the Yellow Rose's Heiress."

The young man stared at a full cup of cold tea.

For an entire thirty seconds, there was no sound from his lips, no expression on his face. If one were to walk by this young man, fully intent on observing, they would see nothing but the slight shake of his pupils and the trembling of the parlor table.

"General."

"Yes, my Prince."

"Status on Rogze."

"Eliminated. I took the liberty."

"Have him burnt. I will handle the ashes myself." A small exhale. "I expect full reports on Riliane's status. Progress on the mirror?'

"Progress is minimal, no news at all."

"Then either someone is suppressing it, or it is hidden further than we thought. Continue searching. I will begin my own efforts."

"Very well, Prince. Will I expect to see you soon?"

"Perhaps. Good work, General." Kyle hung up and set his phone on the parlor table, propping up his head with his hands, lips pressed into a thin line.

Mother's old faction, hm?

After a moment of thought, he picked up the phone again, this time dialling a number himself.

"Dylan," he said, "book me a ferry to Lucifenia."